Erased

On Sunday, the New York Times broke the story (link here) that Donald Trump's administration is planning on strictly limiting gender based on which genitals someone is born with, effectively erasing transgender out of existence as well as legal protections for transgender persons. Their reporting was spurred by a 2017 Trump administration memo they obtained that discussed the planned policy in detail.

Not surprisingly, transgender Americans and their supporters reacted with fury. This from the President who promised to be the most pro-LGBT chief executive in history, which of course is a thumping big lie.

Once the story broke, the Trump administration then fraudulently tried to blame the Obama administration for the policy shift, notwithstanding the memo proposing the radical change originated in the Trump White House months after President Obama left office.

As the Times piece notes, the Obama administration's pro-LGBT stance on transgender issues outraged conservative Republicans, "especially evangelical Christians." Hence, the likely reason driving this whole radical policy change -- Trump once again is pandering to the only segment of the population that still strongly supports him.

Indeed, one has to wonder if the memo in question was leaked out of the White House on purpose to throw some red meat to evangelicals and to distract them from the latest scandals erupting out of the Trump White House.

Once these policies are put into place, it's a certainty that LGBT interest groups will file suit in federal court to block the proposal. Our only hope at this point is that litigation succeeds both at the trial and appeal level.